18.01.2018, Moscow.
The leaders of the October Revolution differed from the leaders of the February Revolution by possessing their messianic, chiliastic mentality and the understanding that the West was opposed to the Soviet Russia, Emeritus Professor of St. Antony’s College (Oxford University) Robert Service said during the expert discussion at the Valdai Club on January 18, Rossa Primavera News Agency correspondent reports.
Answering the question of the program director of the Valdai Club Fund Oleg Barabanov on how does he evaluate the leaders of the Revolution, in particular, Trotsky, Robert Service said that, in principle, he considers it wrong to try to analyze by labeling the leaders of the Revolution as good guys and bad guys or to counterpose Lenin to Stalin. The professor says that it is necessary to consider the whole Soviet period, to analyze the structure of Bolshevism, the ideas uniting the communists.
The professor believes that Bolsheviks differed from the leaders of the February Revolution, such as Martov, Milyukov, as the Bolsheviks had a messianic and chiliastic mentality and they knew the world was against them. Robert Service stressed that all the major powers, indeed, sought to destroy Soviet Russia.
Robert Service believes, despite the fact that all the leaders of the Revolution are interesting individuals in themselves, it is more important to understand the ideological content of communism that united them, because “the problem has not gone away“, these ideas “are still there in the world“, because China exists.
In his later statement during the Valdai club meeting Robert Service said that despite the fact that Hitler executed numerous rabbis, imams, and priests, he is still better than Bolsheviks.
Robert Service (born in 1947), Emeritus Professor of St. Antony’s College (Oxford University); Senior researcher at the Hoover Institute (Stanford University, USA), British historian and author who has written extensively on the history of the Soviet Union. He has written the biographies of Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin, and Leon Trotsky.
Editorial comment:
Chiliasm (from Greek сhiliás meaning “a thousand“) is a faith in the “Millennial kingdom” of God and the righteous people on Earth, it is the faith in realization of the ideal of justice on Earth even before the end of the world.
The ideas of Nazis aimed at creating hell on Earth, kingdom of absolute inequality with humans and “non-humans”, directly opposes this chiliastic dream of communists. These ideas were around for as long as humanity exists. Favoring Hitler over communists is an attack against humanity and all the hardships it suffered through its history on its course towards the Millennial kingdom of God.
Source: Rossa Primavera News Agency
